ISA Annual Convention
March 15, 2023
“Horizontal” networks at home 🏡
(Brinkerhoff 2009; Alonso and Oiarzabal 2010; Bernal 2020)
“Vertical” networks abroad 🌏
(Keck and Sikkink 1999; Michaelsen 2018; Esberg and Siegel 2020)
➡️ Diaspora dissidents can credibly ruin a state’s international reputation.
They can leverage facets of national identity to evade consequences for their targeted vitriol.
Attacking women and gender minorities is considered to be “more acceptable”1.
🔎 Hypothesis 1: Women* are more likely to be targeted with toxic tweets compared to men.
Strategic use of language can reinforce national identity and protect a state’s global reputation2.
🔎 Hypothesis 2: Tweets in English are less likely to be toxic compared to tweets in Chinese.
Source: AFP via Getty Images
Chinese Transnational Repression of Uyghurs (CTRU)1
Sampling criteria
➡️ Gender-balanced sample of 22 prominent diaspora regime critics
Based on t-tests using the manually labeled pro-CCP tweets…
States that engage in domestic human rights abuses have a vested interest in suppressing diaspora dissent on foreign social media.
Pro-government actors—while varied in their affiliations and motives—can weaponize national identity to play into global norms; evade platforms’ community guidelines
Preliminary hypotheses demonstrate that women are more likely to be targeted with vitriol, while differences in the use of language are unclear.
This paper offers an empirical basis for taking a target-centered approach to studying the “grey areas” of digital transnational repression on foreign platforms.
koh@hertie-school.org
https://allisonkoh.github.io/
@allisonwkoh@mastodon.social🎓
@allisonwkoh@fosstodon.org📊
@allisonkoh_